Talking Volumes

Talking Volumes, a collaboration between MPR News and the Minnesota Star Tribune, returns for a landmark 27th season at a new location, the O’Shaughnessy Auditorium at St. Catherine University in St. Paul.

Join us this fall for five special events with authors including Marlon James, Lucy Foley, Min Jin Lee, Emily St. John Mandel and Colson Whitehead. Tickets available now.

Minnesota is more than home to author William Kent Krueger. It’s a central character in most of his books. Kruger talked about it — and about his primary human character, Cork O’Connor — at a special spring Talking Volumes in Duluth earlier this month.
From the archives: William Kent Krueger on 'Lightning Strike'
This Friday on Big Books and Bold Ideas, you’ll hear Kerri Miller’s spring Talking Volumes conversation with Minnesota author Kent Krueger. So it’s only fitting that our archive this week is Krueger’s last appearance at Talking Volumes in 2021.
Talking Volumes hits the road this spring
Minnesota Public Radio and the Star Tribune are proud to announce a special spring series of Talking Volumes. We are taking Talking Volumes on the road with two special events in Greater Minnesota. These special Talking Volumes pop-up events will be hosted by award-winning journalist Kerri Miller.
The 2022 season of Talking Volumes ended on a joyous, raucous note with poet Ross Gay. Don’t miss this rollicking conversation between Gay and host Kerri Miller as they talk about how to grow joy from the often messy and painful soil of living.
“Signal Fires” is Dani Shapiro’s much-anticipated return to fiction, and it examines how what binds families together can also tear them apart. She appeared on the Talking Volumes stage this month to talk with MPR News host Kerri Miller about her book and what she’s learned about family secrets.
Host Kerri Miller’s second Talking Volumes event for the 2022 season took place at the Fitzgerald Theater on Oct. 26 with the acclaimed writer Celeste Ng.
From the archives: Author Sarah Broom at Talking Volumes 2020
Host Kerri Miller spoke with author Sarah Broom about memoir “The Yellow House” during the 2020 Talking Volumes season. Like the coming Talking Volumes conversation with Celeste Ng, it powerfully depicts the anchoring of family and what happens when that anchor is cut adrift. Let this wet your appetite for this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas conversation.
The 2022 season of Talking Volumes launched Sept. 14 with Karen Armstrong and MPR News host Kerri Miller returning to the Fitzgerald Theater stage.
From the archives: Karen Armstrong on ‘The Lost Art of Scripture’
The 2022 season of Talking Volumes launches this week with Karen Armstrong and her new book, “Sacred Nature: Restoring our Ancient Bond with the Natural World.” So we thought it only appropriate to make this week’s dip into the archives the last time Armstrong was on the Talking Volumes stage. It was in 2019, when she joined host Kerri Miller to discuss “The Lost Art of Scripture.”